Paul Anka 2017

Born July 30, 1941, in Ottawa into a tight-knit Canadian family, Paul Anka
didn't waste much time getting his life in music started. He sang in the
choir at Church and studied piano. He honed his writing skills with
journalism courses, even working for a spell at the Ottawa Citizen. By 13,
he had his own vocal group, the Bobbysoxers. He performed at every amateur
night he could get to in his mother's car, unbeknownst to her of course.
Soon after, he won a trip to New York by winning a Campbell's soup contest
for IGA Food Stores that required him to spend three months collecting soup
can labels. It was there his dream was solidified, he was going to make it
as a singer composer; there was not a doubt in his young tenacious mind.

In 1956, he convinced his parents to let him travel to Los Angeles, where
he called every record company in the phone book looking for an audition. A
meeting with Modern Records led to the release of Anka's first single,
"Blau-Wile Deverest Fontaine." It was not a hit, but Anka kept plugging
away, going so far to sneak into Fats Domino's dressing room to meet the
man and his manager in Ottawa. When Anka returned New York in 1957, he
scored a meeting with Don Costa, the A&R man for ABC-Paramount Records.
He played him a batch of songs that included "Diana" - Costa was duly
enthusiastic about the potential of the young singer and songwriter. The
rapid and enormous success of "Diana"- his first number one hit - made him
a star.

"They are all very autobiographical," says Anka of his early hits. "I was
alone, traveling, girls screaming, and I never got near them. I'm a
teenager and feeling isolated and all that. That becomes ‘Lonely Boy.' At
record hops, I'm up on stage and all these kids are holding each other with
heads on each other's shoulders. Then I have to go have dinner in my room
because there are thousands of kids outside the hotel — ‘Put Your Head on
My Shoulder' was totally that experience.

Soon Paul found himself traveling by bus with the ‘Cavalcade of Stars' with
the top names of the day in the era of segregation, performing at the Copa
Cabana, the youngest entertainer ever to do so, and honing his craft
surrounded by the likes of Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly, Frankie Lyman, and
Chuck Berry.

By the time the Beatles arrived in the sixties, Anka had another tool in
his survival kit. "After a few hits," he says, "I knew I was a writer, and
with writers, the power was always in the pen. When I started writing for
Buddy Holly and Connie Francis, I felt that it made me different for people
— they'd say, ‘Hey, you can write, you can fall back on something." Among
his proudest accomplishments was writing the Academy Award-nominated theme
for The Longest Day, the 1962 film in which he also starred.

Songwriting and performing "are what gave me the confidence to keep going,"
he says. Becoming a junior associate of Sinatra and the Rat Pack also had
its privileges. By the ‘70s, the success of "My Way" and a string of hits
like "(You're) Having My Baby" confirmed his status as an icon of popular
music. His later achievements as a recording artist included "Hold Me ‘Til
the Morning Comes," a hit duet with Peter Cetera in 1983, the
Spanish-language album Amigos in 1996, and Body of Work, a 1998 duets album
that featured Frank Sinatra, Celine Dion, Patti LaBelle, Tom Jones and
daughter Anthea Anka. If this wasn't enough, it was revealed upon its
release in 2009, that Anka co-wrote Michael Jackson's posthumous #1
worldwide hit, "This Is It," which has further cemented his place upon the
most prolific and versatile songwriters of any generation.

Not one to rest on his laurels, Anka's two most recent albums - Rock Swings
and now Classic Songs, My Way - ingeniously featured songs originally
created by some of the biggest rock performers of the day - as well as
other established artists across several genres. The twist: Paul Anka did
the songs ‘his way.' His goal: "taking great songs and rework them so
they're natural for me." With the help of his five daughters, Anka spent
months researching music from the ‘80s and ‘90s, trying to find the songs
that would work in the radical new context he proposed. The songs that made
the cut included Bon Jovi's "It's My Life," Lionel Richie's "Hello" and
Eric Clapton's "Tears in Heaven." Even more dramatic were his
transformations of "Wonderwall" by Oasis, "Black Hole Sun" by Soundgarden
and Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit."

Rock Swings went Top 10 in the UK, and was certified gold in the UK,
France, and Canada, hit No. 2 on Billboard's Top Jazz Albums chart and went
on to sell half a million units worldwide.